Saskia looks happy. I find her on a bench in Regent’s Park, where we agreed to meet, because, thankfully, she has a meeting in town. She’s positively glowing, as if it were she that was pregnant and not her character, Melody. I wonder for a second if that might be it. Maybe Josh’s way of showing that he’s fully committed, that he regrets the way he almost threw his marriage away on a misunderstanding, has been to knock her up. Not that I think either of them has any great desire to have a child. And she is, of course, forty-three, whatever she says, which is pushing it a bit to have a first baby, but stranger things have happened.
‘You look amazing!’ I say as we hug hello. ‘Whatever you’re doing at the moment, it’s working.’
‘Don’t even get me started on you,’ she says. ‘I barely even recognize the woman I first met a couple of months ago.’
‘OK, let’s just agree we’re both fabulous.’ I still feel awkward accepting compliments about the way I look. I just don’t have that gracious gene.
We buy coffees (well, I buy a coffee and Saskia gets a green tea because she has a ‘no coffee after lunch’ rule) and then we walk up towards the rose garden, even though the roses are past their best. We catch up with all the mundane stuff but, actually, I find it hard to concentrate because I’m dying to hear the lowdown on Robert and Samantha. When she leaves a rare two-second pause in a story she’s telling me about having her parents over for lunch, I pounce.
‘So you have to tell me what’s going on with Robert …’
‘What? Oh … sorry. There’s me babbling on about God knows what. OK, so, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the pair of them since I gave him the good news, and I would definitely say relations were frosty.’
I take a sip of my coffee. Burn my tongue. ‘Ouch. He seems like his normal self at home, though. Not as if he’s upset about something.’
‘That’s what he seems like at work too, actually. I wonder if he thinks he’s had a lucky escape.’
‘Do you really think they’ve split up?’
‘God knows,’ she says, swatting away an over-excited wasp. ‘But they definitely aren’t acting like love’s young dream any more. We did a big scene in the pub yesterday and he didn’t even look at her. Whereas she didn’t take her eyes off him for a second. Plus, her eyes are all red and puffy. One of the make-up girls told me she’d been crying too. It took them hours to unpuff her eyes, apparently. Is that a word, “unpuff”? If it isn’t, it should be.’
‘And he hasn’t said anything to you?’
‘We haven’t really seen each other since. Oh, I did pass him in the corridor on my way out yesterday, and I asked him how he was and he just rolled his eyes. There were people around, though, so we couldn’t really talk. But I’m sure he’ll tell me what’s going on because, who else can he talk to? Even if he doesn’t like me much, I’m all he’s got.’
It’s huge, but it’s not enough yet. I need to make sure that relationship is well and truly dead.
‘What else can I do to make sure they don’t just pick up where they left off after a few days?’
Saskia thinks for a moment. I watch while a large dog takes a small woman for a walk, straining at the end of its leash like a rabid ox pulling a plough.
She turns to me with a triumphant look on her face. ‘I think you just have to keep on doing what you’re doing. I, on the other hand …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think about it. Robert knows I know about him and Samantha. So I can tell him anything. I could make something else up that she’s supposedly said or done that would really piss him off …’
‘It needs to be something that couldn’t be proven,’ I say. I can’t deny I’m getting a buzz of excitement, thinking about it. ‘If he’s feeling like he doesn’t quite trust her because of the baby thing, then even the tiniest hint of something might push him over the edge.’
‘Oh my God, I’ve got it!’ She bangs her tea down on the bench and it slops over the rim of the cup. ‘I’ll tell him I’ve seen her flirting with Jez. Or worse. Kissing him. He’s so terrified of Jez he would never confront him in a million years. He’ll check with her. She’ll deny it. He won’t believe her. I just have to find a way to make sure he doesn’t tell her it came from me. That should be easy enough, given that I’m the keeper of his biggest secret …’
‘God, Saskia, do you think we should? Is it too much, involving someone who’s completely innocent?’
‘Jez’ll never find out.’
‘No, he will, because Samantha would probably tell him. She might go and beg him to explain to Robert that it’s not true. That’s what I’d do, wouldn’t you?’
‘You’re right. I have to think this through. I’ll come up with something.’
‘You know how much I appreciate this, don’t you?’
‘You can pay me back by agreeing to come to a Bikram class one weekend, haha!’
I reach for my default response: no thanks, followed by some kind of disparaging remark about my weight and general lack of fitness. It dies on my tongue, though. Before I know it, I’m agreeing to go.
‘Really?’ she says, raising one eyebrow, something I’ve always wished I could do myself. I used to practise for hours in front of a mirror when I was a teenager because I thought it would give me an air of sophisticated mystery. I never managed it, though, even when I stuck Sellotape over the one I wanted to stay down. ‘I was convinced you’d put up more of a fight than that.’
‘I’m a changed woman.’
‘This Saturday?’
Now I’ve said yes, I’m rapidly losing my bottle. What if I’m one of those passing-out people? It’s all very well doing a bit of yoga (I say, as if I have any idea. I attempted a DVD once, because I thought it looked like the easy, pain-free alternative to real exercise, and I had to give up after ten minutes because I pulled something in my thigh. That’s my sole first-hand experience), but it strikes me as another thing entirely doing it while being slow-roasted.
‘I’m not sure. It’s Georgia’s birthday this weekend …’
‘Chicken. Well, if you decide you’re brave enough, let me know ahead of time, because I’ll have to book you in. And I’ll have a word with Adrienne, the teacher, so she knows there’s a beginner in the room. Otherwise, she’ll just steam ahead, and you’ll end up with no idea what’s going on.’
I tell myself it’s time to be brave. ‘OK, sod it, I’ll do it. Not this Saturday, though. Next.’
Saskia claps her hands together like a small, over-excited child. ‘Excellent. Good girl.’
I can’t wait to tell Myra. This one might just push her over the edge.